


à quatre mains

by thedevilchicken



Category: Heroes (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-23 00:38:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8307097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: When Peter dreams of Nathan, they're playing the piano.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cerberusia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerberusia/gifts).



When Peter dreams of Nathan, they're playing the piano. 

Their mom made them both take lessons when they were younger, not that either of them appreciated it a whole lot at the time. Mr. Trefusis the piano teacher was a quiet, kinda unassuming guy except when his students made mistakes, and in the beginning Peter made a lot of mistakes. He was six years old. Of course he made mistakes. 

Peter's childhood was scales. He learned scales week after week, up and down and up and down, major, minor, melodic, harmonic, contrary motion, chromatic scales, scales in thirds. He found them kinda soothing at the time 'cause they're so regular and completely unchanging, 'cause they were patterns and not just dots scattered all over the page. He'd play them over and over once he'd gotten his homework finished, after dinner, with the old wooden metronome on top of the big old grand piano or without, faster slower, though in the end Nathan would always come in and sit down and put him off.

Nathan made him scooch over and he'd start to play so Peter had to join in, 'cause that was just the way it worked. They played simple stuff in the start, tunes from books for kids, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, When the Saints Go Marching In, but over the years, things started to change. They played crappy jazz arrangements once Peter got good enough, just 'cause they could and 'cause their mom really hated it. They played cheerful ragtime that sounded weird on their piano in the ballroom, all crossed hands and snickering. There was one Thanksgiving when Peter was seventeen when all they did was play Bach from a big book of the Brandenburg Concertos for four hands arranged for four hands, barely speaking, scribbling notes all over the pages with a pencil they handed one to the other and back again till they got it right from beginning to end. Their mom said they were insufferable when they were like that. She wasn't wrong. 

Maybe they were never concert-level but they were always pretty good. And Nathan taught him more than Mr. Trefusis ever did. 

When Peter dreams of Nathan, they're playing the piano. 

It doesn't matter where Peter is in the waking world 'cause in his dreams they're always at the piano in the place where they grew up. One minute he's in his bed in his apartment and the next he's there, shoulder to shoulder with Nathan. Sometimes they're in polo shirts and shorts and the fans and the windows that open onto the veranda can't stop their sweat-slicked fingers from slipping on the keys. Sometimes Nathan's in slacks and shirtsleeves though they're rolled up to his elbows with his tie tucked in between buttons so it won't get in the way and Peter tugs it back out, tickles his chin with it, makes him scowl as he tries to play. Tonight, they're both in tuxes.

"You look like a penguin in that thing," Peter says as he unbuttons his jacket and sits down on the bench. He plays through C Major, right hand only, _presto_ , and Nathan puts his own hands on Peter's shoulders, rubs, digs in with his fingers and thumbs and makes his eyes drift closed. 

"Mom always said it suited me," Nathan says. 

"And you always believed everything mom told you?"

Nathan shrugs, then leans past Peter's shoulder, reaches across to the piano and makes C Major sound A minor. Then he straddles the bench so he's sideways to the keyboard and puts the left hand to Peter's scale while he's sitting there looking at him, sitting pretty far too close. For anyone else it might be too close, at least. It's been normal for the two of them for years.

"I should've listened to you," Nathan says. 

Peter's mouth twists wryly. His eyes are on his hands; he reaches past Nathan's and adds another octave lower. "You should've done a lot of things," he says. 

Sometimes all they do all night is play. They had a repertoire while Nathan was still living, things they knew by heart and things they played from books that sat in a bureau across the room, alphabetized 'cause that was how their mom liked it. They'd leave sheets out and find they'd vanished again the next night, or the next time Nathan visited, the next time Peter did once he'd gotten his own place with an upright piano he barely ever touched except when Nathan came by, sometimes. They had a repertoire and it's expanded a whole lot since he died. They've gotten better, year by year. They've had a whole lot of practice.

Sometimes they talk while they play. Peter remembers the Christmas when he was twenty-three and Nathan tried to play carols four hands at the piano with Heidi, except it just didn't work the way it did with the two of them. She smiled tightly and so did Peter as they passed on their way from and to the keyboard and Peter tried not to sit too close, he really did, except Nathan shuffled closer anyway. They sat there, Nathan's neatly-pressed slacks against Peter's worn jeans, playing through all the carols they knew while they talked like no one else could hear, 'cause no one could. These days, there's no one around to hear at all. When Peter dreams, they're the only ones there. 

Tonight, Peter doesn't feel so much like talking. He doesn't feel so much like playing, either, so he stops mid-scale, leaves it hanging and Nathan plays the next couple of notes, the next three or four to get to the top of the scale before he stops, too. Peter glances sideways and once upon a time he'd've had to brush his hair out of his eyes to look at him like that but he cut it down as short as Nathan's years ago. 

"What're you thinking?" Nathan asks.

"I'm thinking you shouldn't've died." 

Nathan's mouth twists wryly. His eyes are on Peter's hands, paused over the keys; he reaches past him, left hand to the far side of Peter's face. "I shouldn't've done a lot of things," he says. 

Peter turned forty-three last month, so he's older now than Nathan ever was or got to be. And maybe things are simpler now that Nathan's dead 'cause all the times they got too close in life make sense, but Jesus, fuck, he'd never have wished this for the world. 

Peter turned forty-three last month, and he's older than Nathan ever was. Nathan's thumb brushes the crow's feet at the corner of his eye and they lean together, not quite awkwardly 'cause, after all, it's a dream. Peter's hands leave the piano and close on Nathan's jacket and they know what kind of a night tonight's gonna be when Nathan's stubble scrapes against his and they look each other in the eye. While Nathan was alive, they never could've done that. While Nathan was alive, they pretended like all they were was brothers. 

There was once when they were drunk and they'd been arguing, not that they talked about it after. It was some shitty party or other, the Petrellis threw to many of them, and afterwards Peter sat down at the piano. He was the wrong side of tipsy and he knew it, should've just headed out and hailed a cab and gone back home but there he was, then there Nathan was, no Heidi, no mom, just the two of them. And they argued, who the fuck knew why but they did, bitter about it, so fucking angry all they could do was hiss their words instead of shout them. Peter tore Nathan's shirt, not like he was trying to but he got there anyway. Nathan laughed, harshly, and Peter took exception. And Jesus, the next thing they'd known they'd been all over each other, Nathan's hands in Peter's hair, Peter's hands under Nathan's jacket, finding the hole he'd torn in his shirt, finding his skin underneath. They kissed like they were still fighting. Peter guesses they were. 

It went too far. Peter wound up sitting on the closed lid over the piano keys, clothed thighs spread wide and Nathan standing in between them. They found themselves pushing against each other, breath all hitches, Nathan's teeth at his throat. And when they came, still in their tuxes, Nathan bucked and sobbed a breath against Peter's neck before he turned and walked away. They couldn't be seen together, not like that. Maybe Peter didn't care, but Nathan did.

Now Nathan's dead, it's simpler 'cause there's no one else to see but them. 

Peter hopped from power to power for years, adopting a new one as he shed the old one. He flew, reminded of Nathan while he did it. He read thoughts. He moved things with his mind. And then, one day, he came across an old man who dreamed the dead, or at least he claimed to. When he dreamed Nathan that night, at the piano in New York, they were both as surprised as each other; the second night, all they did was talk; the third, all they did was play. 

The twenty-seventh night, Nathan twined his fingers up with Peter's just to see if he was real. The thirty-ninth night, Peter wrapped his arms round Nathan's waist and held on tight 'cause by then he _knew_ that he was real. The fifty-third night, when they stopped playing, Nathan pressed his mouth to Peter's knuckles, to his wrists, his palms. The seventy-first, they kissed, not drunk, not angry. The eighty-first, they went to bed. 

It wasn't romantic. It was pretty hard for it to be when they were stuck in an empty New York in the summer sun, a hundred degrees outside so their shirts stuck to their skin. They were playing something bright 'cause it was bright outside and then Peter couldn't stand it, made one mistake and then another till he mashed the keys with the heels of both hands and Nathan being Nathan, he just raised his brows. Peter stood and walked away. 

When Nathan found him, he was already half-naked and the shower was running half-cold and Nathan being there didn't stop him stripping off his boxers and stepping in under the spray. Nathan followed. Before Peter even knew it, there was Nathan, his wet hands at Peter's hips, wet chest against his back. It wasn't a choice they could've made while Nathan was still living but there they were and after, cooler, Peter's wet hair dripping water right down the line of his bare spine, they went out into Peter's room and stretched out naked on the bed. 

"I used to listen to you," Peter said, 'cause it'd occurred to him the last time they'd both really been there that was what he'd done, just like he'd done more than once. He'd pretended he hadn't, 'cause what had been fine back when he'd been in high school hadn't been the same when he was twenty-nine, just before it all began, before Claire, before the end of the world that wasn't. He'd listened to Nathan in his room, heard the way his breath caught so he knew exactly what he was doing. And when he'd been younger it'd been easy to brush it off, blame it on hormones or whatever, but at twenty-nine he'd known better. He'd made himself come with one hand at his cock and one clamped over his mouth to keep from giving the whole game away. "The walls are pretty thin." 

Nathan looked at him, turned his head just far enough to look at him sidelong, and Peter saw him swallow, saw his throat bob before he said, "Me too." 

It wasn't romantic but it was good, so hot in the room that their pulses were racing even before they got their hands on one another. Nathan came between his thighs; Peter came between their abdomens, and then they showered again before Peter woke up.

Night one hundred nine, they went all the way, stop-starting till Nathan was all the way in him. Peter's hands went tight around the slats in Nathan's headboard. Nathan's hands pushed tight against the backs of Peter's thighs. It was snowing outside on the empty streets but Peter couldn't've cared less if the whole world had gone away and left the two of them behind. As Nathan fucked him, up on his knees, Peter down on his back, as Nathan had him slow and hard with his hands on his skin and his breath in the air, Peter couldn't've cared less if he'd never woken up.

There've been hundreds of nights since then. There've been thousands. They've learned new songs and Peter's gotten older, they've talked and fucked and argued, fought, kissed, made up and fought again. And maybe it's real and maybe it's not but he wouldn't have it any other way. 

Every night, Peter sleeps and dreams of Nathan because that's the one power he's chosen to keep. He's been careful for years. He'll never take another one.

Every night, Peter sleeps and dreams of Nathan. He'll dream of Nathan till the day he dies.


End file.
